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PERSONAL NARRATIVES 


OK EVENTS IN THE 


War of the Rebellion, 


BEING PAI’EKS READ BEFORE THE 


RHODE ISLAND SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 


Third Series-No. 18. 



PKo VI hence: 

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 

1886. 




l-KOVlI>KNCK rilKSS (;OMl>ANY, l*KINTERS. 


Iq Exchang’o. 







FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 




E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, 

[Company C, Fourth (Jonnecticut Infantry, subsequently tlie 


First Connecticut Heavy Artillery.] 


FROVIDKNCE: 

rUlU.ISHKT) RY Tine SOCIETY. 

issn. 




. Asts" 


[Edition limited to two lumdred and fifty copies.] 


A PRIVATE’S REMINISCENCES OF THE FIRST 
YEAR OF THE WAR. 


It is a common remark that we of to-day are too 
near the last war to write of it with phlegm and 
candor. This is mostly a piece of cant. No mat¬ 
ter in what sense you take the word history, there 
is much of the history of the war that can be writ¬ 
ten better now than ever hereafter. There is much 
of it, in fact, that will never be written at all if it 
is not soon. Preeminently is this the case regard¬ 
ing those odd details, curious happenings, funny 
experiences, those indescribable scenes of camp, 
march and drill, which form the densest and most 
picturesque spots in every soldier’s memory of the 
war. I refer to the matters with which most of 
our early letters home from the camp were taken up. 
They became so antiquated before we got out of ser¬ 
vice, and other more weighty, more serious, less 



6 


A private’s reminiscences. 


comical things came to occupy our attention, that 
these ludicrous sides of military life have with 
many passed largely out of remark. Those also 
who went out as recruits into well-organized regi¬ 
ments became soldiers with fewer of the stumbling 
and grotesque approaches by which the campaigners 
of early ’61 attained to that degree. 

In this aspect of its history, the first is the most 
interesting year in all the war. Hare were the men 
who, when the drums first beat to arms, knew what 
arms meant. My regiment, the Fourth Connecticut 
[after October, 1861, the First Connecticut Heavy 
Artillery], taking the oath to the United States on 
May 22, 1861, was, so far as I have ever learned, 
the earliest volunteer regiment to be mustered in 
for three years. We had been already enlisted for 
some time as three months’ men before the call for 
a three years’ contingent came ; and so hot was our 
patriotic zeal, that we instantly subscribed again 
for the longer term. 

The imagination of youth is specially active, and 
because I was then so young, I may perhaps re¬ 
tain in memory better than some of my older com- 



FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


7 


rades, the notions, the expectations, the theories, 
with which they and I enlisted. One of our fixed 
ideas was that a single Yankee could whip five reb¬ 
els with the utmost ease. Some placed the number 
as high as twelve ; but I think that any man in my 
company venturing incredulity as to our ability easily 
to vanquish the rebels in the ratio of five of them to 
one of ourselves, would have been summarily ejected 
from the company. Like Gideon of old, we wanted 
no faint hearts in our band. 

As part of the same delusion, men used to sug¬ 
gest, not wholly in fun, that our regiment, or at 
any rate the troops from Connecticut, should take 
the contract of thrashing the rebels for so many 
thousand dollars, the job to be completed, inspected 
and passed upon by competent European commis¬ 
sioners, not later than the end of July, or no charge 
at all to be made. 

Quite as laughable were the pictures we drew to 
ourselves of the manner in which we were to make 
the campaign. When I enlisted, and for some days 
thereafter, I fully expected to carry a trunk with 
me, and a commodious number of changes of rai- 



8 


A PRIVATE'S REMINISCENCES. 


merit; on finding which impossible, I felt as down¬ 
cast as did the hundred days’ man whom I met at 
Bermuda Hundred in ’64, who, being just out from 
Ohio, hadn’t had any pie or any butter for his bread 
since leaving Fortress Monroe. How, too, we 
loaded oui’selves with pistols, bowie-knives, and a 
whole lot of other furniture that was, we thought, 
going to be handy when we got down South. One 
might be called upon to clinch with a rebel. The 
rebel would, of course, be the under dog, but might 
not let you up, you know. How convenient to reach 
round behind you, draw your bowie-knife and coax 
him to relax his grip ! One very devout soldier car¬ 
ried his family bible. The knapsack that tugged at 
my wretched shoulders when we left Hartford for the 
front on June tenth, of ’61, would have made a camel 
pant, containing wares enough to have stocked a 
country store. This lugging about of Egyptian 
pyramids upon our backs we soon abandoned, as we 
did the bowie-knives and pistols. One man in our 
company, however, never marched with less than 
sixty or seventy pounds in his knapsack, to the end 
of the Avar. His calling before had been that of a 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


9 


pack-pedlar, and he said he experienced a certain 
dilSiculty in not falling forward on his face, unless he 
had about the old load strapped behind. 

Alas, the knapsack was but one among our bur¬ 
dens that dreadful day on which we set forth for the 
war. Such uniforms as we writhed under! I per¬ 
spire at thought of them now, after the lapse of a 
quarter of a century. As the United States Gov¬ 
ernment was unable to provide us in this respect, the 
excellent Governor Buckingham, of Connecticut, had 
assumed to do it. He, good man, had rigged us out 
with suits of the thickest sort of gray woolen, made, 
one would have thought, especially for midwinter 
wear in Greenland. There were heavy gray felt 
hats to match. We had no blouses. The coats 
were short, without skirts ; the pants of so generous 
girth that if any hero, beating perchance a hasty re¬ 
treat, should have the misfortune to lose his knap¬ 
sack, he might not be destitute of a good place to 
bestow his blanket. Some of the trousers were 
three inches too long; some nearly as much too 
short. The average coat, too, had a considerable 
surplus of circumference. Vests there were none ; 


10 


A private’s reminiscences. 


for which hick, coarse, heavy, gray flannel shirts, 
with the redundant longitude of the trousers, were 
expected to make amends. 

We had cartridge-boxes, haversacks, canteens and 
old-fashioned Springfield muskets. Not being grad¬ 
uates of a Turveydrop Academy, we had little taste in 
arranmn^ this ^ear when we came to don it. Here 
would be a tall man with the straps for those utensils 
so short as to bring his canteen, haversack and car¬ 
tridge-box well up under his arms, the first two on 
one side, the cartridge-box on the other; yonder a 
little five-footer would go "hepp,” ”hepp,” "hepp,” 
along, with those same indispensable appurtenances 
hopping half way to his heels. Some had their 
overcoats strapped neatly and compactly plumb on 
the top of their knapsacks; others fastened them 
on in so dowdy a way as to suggest that they meant 
the very frightfulness of their appearance to drive 
back the foe, on the principle which Sidney Smith 
must refer to when he mentions a man the mere look 
of whose face was a breach of the peace, he was so 
homely. 

And then what inimitable marching ! My company 

I 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


11 


was about equally divided at first between the men 
who could keep no time at all, those who could 
keep some time but not much, and those who could 
keep a good deal of time if each were permitted to 
do it in his own way. In a word, it took a long 
while for us to become strong in rhythm. Our first 
marked improvement appeared at the moment when 
we mastered the trick of bringing down our left feet 
all together, responding to the ”hepp,” "hepp,” 
"hepp,” of the drill-master, letting the right feet 
take care of themselves. When we could do that, 
we felt that war was indeed a fine art and we fine 
artists. Ah, we found there were perfections not 
yet attained ! The next stage of advance was when 
the right feet all struck the earth together, or at any 
rate a great majority of them, but not midway of 
the interval between two percussions with the left. 
Beyond this none but the men of genius went, till 
some time after Bull Kun ; and one at least of those 
my valorous comrades never could, to the last, learn 
any other than the go-as-you-please step. The sub¬ 
limity of this case lay in the fact that the man did 
not pretend to march accurately. Another fellow 


12 


A pkivate’s reminiscences. 


among us almost never had the step, but always, if 
corrected, swore — Athanasius against the world — 
that he and he alone had it. Marching thus out of 
time once behind me, and treading on my heels each 
pace, he threatened in language I will not repeat, to 
report me to the captain for not keeping step. I 
called his attention to the obvious fact that the great 
majority had the same step as I. He said he didn’t 
give a damn for majorities—and he was right. 

But to go back and dwell on those uniforms, and 
to tell you how in those days we had to dwell in 
those uniforms ! As we wore them from Hartford, 
how new they looked! Alas, too soon they began 
to assume a different hice ! Seven days each week 
we had to wear them; often, on guard for instance, 
at night as well. They grew dirty. That was not 
the worst. Kepairs became necessary, and facilities 
for effective repairs there were none. One by one 
those noble garments gave way. No new ones were 
to be had. A hat being lost, one could indeed buy 
a cheap Zouave chapeau from the sutler if one had 
money. Let a coat wear out, its ownei* had no re¬ 
source but to go in shirt-sleeves by day, in his over- 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


13 


coat by night. At Chambersburg, at Hagerstown 
and Williamsport, even at Frederick, our uniforms 
remained fairly presentable; but by the time we 
reached Darnestown, Maryland, in August or Sep¬ 
tember of ’61, we were a sight to behold. Could we 
have been manifested to the rebel army at that time, I 
am sure that Bull Run would have been avenged and 
that Beauregard and his braves would have fallen 
back in dismay. 

Let me attempt to describe to you what, by way 
of euphemism and with extraordinary and dangerous 
strain upon language, we called our dress parade” 
at this period. One man in ten was barefoot. Some 
were bareheaded. Many wore red skull-caps, in 
such queer contrast with the majority, who still re¬ 
tained, limp, faded and dirty, the majestic old som¬ 
breros we had received from Governor Buckingham. 
Not a few in the regiment had become veritable sans 
culottes, and must needs march to the parade-ground 
in their drawers. Hardly a uniform in the entire 
line was whole or clean. 

How vividly I remember a conversation that I 
overheard one evening, at a well whither I had gone, 
2 


14 


A peivate’s reminiscences. 


some distance from our own camp, to replenish my 
canteen for a night of guard duty! It was at the 
close of a day on which the entire Division under 
General Banks had been on review, and my regiment 
had been, if I do say it, the observed of all ob¬ 
servers. The speaker was a Pennsylvanian. say, 
Bill,” said he to his companion, "did yer see that 
rigiment in gray, half on ’em bareheaded or bare¬ 
footed and kinder lookin ’zef they’d ben on a forced 
march like?” "’Deed, did I,” said the other; "them 
uz a sorry lookin’ set, durned if they want.” "They’s 
the fellers wot kin fight tho,” rejoined the first 
speaker. "You bet,” said the second; "they done 
ben to Bull Kun, them fellers, ’n that’s wot ails 
ther rig.” 

This complimentary critic was in error. We had 
not seen Bull Kun. During that battle we were 
back under Patterson at Martinsburg and Williams¬ 
port. Yet when I think of the state of our clothing 
at this time, I do not wonder that the Pennsylvanian 
mistook us for veteran campaigners. Not worse clad 
were the wretches who followed Napoleon back from 
Borodino and Moscow. I have not told you the 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


15 


worst about our experience with that clothing. Nor 
can I. Suffice it to remark that when, a month 
later, we got new apparel, every soldier, as he cast 
each of his old rags away forever, could have said, 
in the language often used to putf a new business 
enterprise, only with»far more truth, “there’s mil¬ 
lions in it.” 

Striking memories come back to me touching the 
commissary’s department and its administration that 
summer of the opening war. We got our first gov¬ 
ernment rations at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. 
The beef barrels and bread boxes were marked 
"B. C.”; and, in the well-known language of Bret 
Harte, " I would not deny in respect to the same what 
that name might imply.” Certainly that food could 
not have been put up since the Mexican war. The 
beef, if such it was, consisted of so many parcels 
and packs of leather shoe-strings. The hard-bread it 
required hammers, axes and stones to break. Soak¬ 
ing it over night in water merely altered the form of 
the difficulty, giving the material the consistency of 
sole-leather. The only mode of preparation by 
which the crackers could be made edible was to 


16 


A private’s reminiscences. 


break them into scraps with a heavy hammer, soak 
them twelve hours in water, and then fry them in 
hot fat. It was hardly a Delmonico dish after all, 
but a taste was not sure death. Those biscuits were 
round, and of the size of a dinner-plate, and I speak 
the truth when I tell you that I have seen toy 
wagons made of them, wheels, axles and all, that 
w^ould bear up a man. This antediluvian fodder 
fortunately lasted but a few months; and when we 
got new hard-tack, baked the same year, it was so 
soft and so sweet, we thought Old Abe had con¬ 
cluded to supply the army with soda-crackers. In 
one respect, it is upon my conscience to confess, the 
old rock was better eating than the new,—it was 
always azoic, and the new wasn’t. 

During the azoic period we got on more happily 
with the bread than with the beef. For not to speak 
of the doubts many of us had whether it was beef 
at all, or of the numerous theories of those in the 
company who allowed doubt upon this point to de¬ 
velop itself in their minds to an extreme, in one 
particular no one was vexed with the slightest skep¬ 
ticism, namely, that it was tough. We were not, 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


17 


however, without resources. The fortune of war had 
sent us into a land, if not exactly flowing with milk 
and honey, at any rate overflowing [if you will 
pardon the metaphor] with youthful swine. Since 
England had recognized the secessionists as belliger¬ 
ents, why should not we? We did, and further, not 
being deeply read in international law, we inclined 
with such light as we had to adopt as sound the 
doctrine of "occasional contraband.” Occasionally, 
therefore, we viewed pigs as contraband, and pro¬ 
ceeded as loyal executives to confiscate. Fresh pork 
tasted better than the flesh General Scott had brought 
home from Mexico. What if we sometimes hap¬ 
pened to select a loyal pig! We did it because we 
loved him. One of Colonel McClure’s grunters fell 
a victim to our bayonets at Chambersburg on a cer¬ 
tain fine morning. We were very sorry, but we 
were very hungry. 

Once, when my company was marching from Wil¬ 
liamsport to Martinsburg as convoy to one of Gen¬ 
eral Patterson’s wagon-trains, my comrade shot a 
fine fat porker suitable for a good supper to the 
entire gang of us. I was deputed to aid him in 


18 


A private’s reminiscences. 


dressing it. Deftly and all unbeknown to the offi¬ 
cers, we loaded the carcass into one of the covered 
wagons, where, on the top of the barrels which 
formed the load, bending over, in spite of the jolting, 
as the ponderous vehicle rolled on, we performed our 
difficult task. At Martinsburg, being obliged to fall 
in and march to our camp with the rest of the com¬ 
pany, we consigned the precious plunder to the 
company drummer, with orders to deliver it at the 
cook’s quarters so soon as possible. He met a man 
who offered him money for it, our precious booty Avas 
sold, and Ave with it, having our labor for our pains. 

Speaking of the cook's quarters, I am reminded 
of two immortal individuals Avho at different times 
presided there. One Avas a colored man Avhom Ave 
picked up in Maryland. He was bright and intelli¬ 
gent, though he could not read, and Avas, of course, 
distressingly ignorant. Of his ignorance, hoAvever, 
he Avas serenely unconscious, and launched into dis¬ 
cussion upon any topic of family, church or state 
Avith as much confidence and gusto as Castlereagh or 
Metternich could have shoAvn. He had been in Vir¬ 
ginia, and had heard of NeAV York and Pennsylvania. 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


19 


These, with Maryland, he used to assert were all the 
states there were. The fellows assured him there 
was another, the state of Matrimony, which he em¬ 
phatically denied, ascribing the mistake charitably 
to lack of information on their part. This colored 
cook of ours had a pretty wife, who occasionally 
visited the camp to see him. He professed and 
manifested for her the greatest affection; yet on 
being asked if he did not fear he would lose her 
when we advancfed into Virginia, he replied : " ’Deed 
I isn’t ’feared o’ nuf’m. De Lor’ hain dun sot all de 
hansum gals in Ole Ma’lun. Dey’s sum mo’ down 
in Virginny sho’s yo bawn, dey is. Ef yo gwine 
ter ’vance inter Virginny, Ole Ma’lun sartin fer ter 
lose dis yere niggah, wife er no wife.” 

Our other ever memorable cook was a soldier from 
our own ranks. I shall always regard him as abso¬ 
lutely the most remarkable personage in the entire 
history of man. It was not, I admit, his genius 
about the cuisine which entitled him to this eminence ; 
it was certain rarer and finer qualities. Among 
these was his good nature. Tastes differ, even upon 
coffee. Two men one morning had dipped and 


20 


A private’s reminiscences. 


sipped from precisely the same boiler of this. 
One returned presently for some more. "Frisbee,” 
said he, ” that’s superb ; it’s the best coffee we’ve had 
this year.” "That’s so,” answered Frisbee, "I took 
er heap o’ pains with that coffee; it oughter be 
good.” Soon came the other,—"Frisbee, your cof¬ 
fee is infernal; it isn’t fit for bilge-water this morn¬ 
ing. Make any more such and I’ll drown you in it.” 
"Wal,” said the imperturbable Frisbee, "that’s so, 
’tis mighty pore this time someho^f, ye know ye 
can’t allers git it jest right.” That marvelous art of 
agreeing with everybody ! Our Frisbee had it in 
perfection. He was a man of expedients, too. Often 
have 1 seen him, when the coffee in the boiler was 
running low before all had been supplied, seize a 
bucket, fill it with cold water from the tank and 
dash it in. If any one then complained of the thus 
diluted stuff, Frisbee was always ready with some 
plausible theory, as that he couldn’t get the fire to 
go, or that he believed the coffee was in some way 
losing strength, or that the army contractors were 
a set of rascals anyhow. 

Frisbee had not very many faults. The only ones 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


21 


I can readily recall were swearing, gambling, lying, 
drinking, stealing and speaking evil of the orderly 
sergeant; but in these few, I feel constrained to 
testify, he was an adept and did not do things by 
halves. In drinking, however, we had one man who 
was more than a match for Frisbee. It was Bill 
Pilkington. He avowed that he did not care for the 
quality of the whiskey if it would only make the 
drunk come, and that he never allowed an opportu¬ 
nity for getting drunk to pass unimproved. I could 
take oath that during my acquaintance with him this 
was strictly true. 

I turn now, with martial ardor, from quartermas¬ 
ter’s and commissary’s affairs to the more serious 
business of drill, discipline and war. I have re¬ 
marked how hard we found it always to march in the 
same step. This was about the lightest of our diffi¬ 
culties. Those of us in the rear rank when the 
marching was to the front, — how prone we were to 
allow more than the regulation thirteen inches be¬ 
tween ourselves and our file leaders ! Each wanted 
to see his file leader’s feet, for some reason or other, 
and they were not invisible to the naked eye, with 


22 


A privatf/s reminiscences. 


army shoes on. Facing was not the easiest thing to 
master, and not infrequently two soldiers, after a 
command "right face” or "left face,” would be found 
hotly contending for the same spot to place their feet 
upon, in the spirit of "Stand, the ground’s your own, 
my braves,” an imbroglio often leading to blows, 
and to be decided only by the official count, "one, 
two, one, two,” etc., down the line. But wheeling 
required still a higher order of genius than facing, 
intricate as the latter was. My captain, with that 
coolheadedness in terrible crises which has character¬ 
ized all the great masters of the art of war from 
Eamses II. down to Lord Wolsey, whenever we were 
about to attempt a left wheel, used to caution us; 
"Now, boys, all look to the right and glance to the 
left.” The few learned fellows among us who had 
read Hardee’s Tactics had a theory that the captain 
was ignorant and should say, instead of "look to the 
right and glance to the left,” "look to the right and 
touch to the left,” and that obedience to the captain’s 
form of the order was obviously impossible. The 
cross-eyed man in the company, generous-natured 
soul, stood up for the captain nobly. He said that 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


23 


what those scholastic philosophers maintained might 
be true in theory but was false in practice, for he 
had proved that the order as given by the captain 
could be carried out with the utmost ease. But 
when a line officer, on one occasion, putting the reg¬ 
iment through the manual, undertook to bring us to 
a ”ground arms” directly from a ”shoulder arms,” 
without any order arms” between, the cross-eyed 
man was compelled to admit with tears that an error 
had been committed. 

My company was at once blessed and cursed with 
Pat Lilly, who had served five years in the regular 
army, and knew the tactics as he knew his name. 
He was very tall, moreover, and graced the right of 
the front rank. I stood in that vicinity myself, and 
often have I heard the officer commanding the com¬ 
pany on regimental drill lean over to Lilly, and in 
whisper ask: "Pat, Pat, what’s the next order to 
give?” 

But Lilly knew the wicked as well as the good 
ways of war. One night at Williamsport, when 
Jackson, then soon to become Stonewall Jackson, 
was just across the Potomac from us, and we there- 


24 


A private’s reminiscences. 


fore had orders to keep the strictest watch, Lilly 
heard the officer of the guard offering to bet a gallon 
of whiskey that no live man could run the guard. 
Lilly took that bet. He won it, too, in spite of the 
new and stricter orders which the officer hurried 
around to give, to shoot down any man passing the 
guard without the countersign. Lilly effected his ob¬ 
ject in this way. Getting as near the guard-line as he 
dared, at a point where two sentry-beats met, he lay 
down and pretended to be in dying agony with the 
colic. Having lain and moaned until apparently 
easier, the sentinels presently thought him asleep, 
when, as they were farthest apart, quicker than 
lightning he darted across the line, over the fence 
into the cornfield adjoining, and dropped flat upon 
the ground. Pop, pop, went the sentinels’ muskets, 
but of course without harm to Lilly, who then got 
up and taking a circuit around, presented himself at 
the guard-quarters for his whiskey, which you may 
be sure he did not pour upon the ground. 

The same Lilly, on another occasion, left his quar¬ 
ters in the night, stole horses from the wagon-camp, 
got a teamster to follow him as orderly, managed to 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


25 


find out the countersign in some way, and rode the 
circuit of the entire brigade in the character of field 
officer of the day, turning out and inspecting guards, 
giving directions to colonels and making a fool of 
everybody. 

We first heard the dreadful name of Jackson the 
very night we arrived in Hagerstown, Maryland, from 
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. It was past midnight, 
perhaps between two and three in the morning, when 
the long roll of the regimental drum corps startled 
the still air of our new camp. The rebels, it was 
said, led by Jackson, were crossing at Williamsport 
in force, and we, perhaps the only bulwark between 
them and the nation’s life-—we six miles away ! It 
was a time to try men’s souls and men’s patience. 
What a scramble for cartridge-boxes, pistols and 
dirks, — for the pistol and bowie-knife era was still 
upon us! The officers bade us be calm, but they 
needed the advice not less imperatively than we. 
At last we had formed line, and the Colonel, on the 
ground probably that more battles are won by march¬ 
ing than by fighting, started us, raw levies, with six 
long miles and probably a battle before us, off on a 
3 


26 


A private’s reminiscences. 


double quick. We ran a mile, puffing, sweating, 
straining our eyes to see that foe we so longed to 
annihilate. "Halt!” What for? Why, the line 
officers have held a council of war while trotting 
along upon their horses, and have concluded that if 
we are to fight it may be well to have our muskets 
loaded. No one had thought of it before. We had 
supposed that our brave Colonel, in whose skill as a 
tactician we had the most unhesitating confidence, 
intended on meeting Jackson, to charge with the 
bayonet? We conclude that he now alters his mind. 
At all events he commands to "load.” But we have 
had no instructions in loading. Which end of the 
cartridge shall go downwards? About a third of the 
men, reasoning apriori that the bullet was the main 
thing, put it in first. A good number of those who 
did not do this, failed to tear the cartridge paper. 
Several put tw*o or three cartridges in; some even 
more. It was the work of a week to empty those 
muskets. Having loaded and breathed, we began 
the race again. The sun rose. Was it the sun of 
Austerlitz? It was as bright and as hot. Men fell 
from the ranks. Some fainted physically, others in 


i'IRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


27 


heart. Some wanted to go home. Perhaps a tenth 
of the regiment reached Williamsport together; the 
rest came straggling in all the rest of the day. No 
enemy was there, the more’s the pity for the enemy, 
for a brave dozen of cavalrymen could have cap¬ 
tured the whole of us. However, Jackson fell back 
toward Martinsbiirg, and we flattered ourselves with 
the hypothesis that he had heard of our advance and 
considered discretion the better part of valor. 

While our camp was at Williamsport, we had 
some of the most ludicrous experiences imaginable. 
Our chief occupation was that to which I have 
already alluded, of convoying General Patterson’s 
wagon trains to Martinsburg. The road lay through 
Virginia; Virginia had then seceded, and we had 
the idea that it was a part of our duty as Union 
soldiers to arrest for treason, as far as we could, all 
who had voted for secession. Patriotic to the core, 
we therefore made this our main business on each 
return trip from Martinsburg. Partly the number¬ 
less family feuds of the neighborhood and partly a 
desire to fool us, brought out plenty of professed 
informers. Every little way along the road we 


28 


A private’s reminiscences. 


would be met by parties assuring us that at such or 
such a house a secessionist lived. We used to break 
up into little squads to go and arrest such. In one 
house we were told that a lot of arms had been gath¬ 
ered for use on the Southern side, and that men had 
assembled there resolved to use and defend these 
arms, if need be, to the death. My company be¬ 
sought the lieutenant commanding us that day to let 
us storm that rebel castle. We threw out flankers 
and advanced. Approaching the house, we had to 
ford a deep stream, and supposed that our foe was 
reserving his fire till he could take us in mid-current. 
AYe charged through. AYe raced up the bank. AA^e 
surrounded that house. Never did Wellington win 
a completer victory. We had our fortress in our 
power without firing or receiving a shot! Not to 
have been fired at at all rather non-plussed us. Had 
the enemy concluded we were resistless and that his 
only course was to surrender at discretion? AYe 
must force our way into the house and ascertain. A 
forlorn hope was called for, — men ready to take 
their lives in their hands for this great emergency. 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


29 


“ Theirs not to make reply; 

Theirs not to reason why ; 

Theirs but to do and die,” 

if necessary. They muster; they rush for the door ; 
no shot; a tottering old gray-beard of seventy-five 
opens; he is the only man there. "Are there any 
arms in this house?” "I reckon ther mout be.” 
" What and where are they?” "Dunno zackly, mis¬ 
ter; wese gut an ole rewolver summer round yere, 
but durned ef I seener this six monts.” The old 
man told the truth. We searched the premises com¬ 
pletely with his undoubtedly genuine aid, and found 
not the first sign of warlike stores save the lonely, 
empty revolver. 

We had been victimized, but we must magnify 
our ofiice as Union soldiers. "Did you vote for se¬ 
cession, old man?” "’Deed did I,” was the prompt 
response. "Then you must go with us to camp,” 
said our officer ; and we had the effrontery to march 
that poor old victim ten miles with us to Williams¬ 
port, and put him in prison there. We noticed that 
as we marched, he kept step with us. Some of my 
most zealous compatriots inferred from this that he 


30 


A pkivate’s reminiscences. 


had been drilling for service in Jackson’s force, and 
were for blowing his brains out on the spot. He 
was saved by the insistence of the cooler ones, that 
the law should take its course. Should we, who had 
enlisted to enforce law, give the example of tramp¬ 
ling on law? God forbid ! The jail at Williamsport 
was full of these unhappy and outraged creatures 
for some weeks, till a provost-marshal who knew 
something, arrived from Washington and set them 
all at liberty. I saw the brave, injured old man 
whom I had helped arrest, climbing the Virginia 
bank of the Potomac, after his release, and with his 
clothes wet from having forded the stream, setting 
off on foot for his distant home. Often have I felt 
like a simpleton, but never more so than then. 

While we lay at Williamsport, reports came every 
few nights of rebel plots to cross the river from 
Virginia and surprise us. One evening it was said 
that such an attempt was quite certain to be made. 
It happened to be my night on guard. It fell to my 
lot to be placed on post at midnight, at a point 
thought to be more exposed than any other about 
the camp,— a corner running up on to a bluff over- 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


31 


looking the river. Just over the blutf, half a dozen 
rods away, was a little copse of trees, convenient, it 
was thought, as a point whence an enemy might make 
a sudden rush upon us. Why we did not occupy 
that thicket ourselves I never knew. That entire 
side of our encampment lay upon the ridge of which 
this blulf was part, the crest of the ridge toward the 
river and toward Virginia, being two or three rods 
outside the sentinels’ beat. Every sentry along this 
exposed front had been given the strictest orders to 
fire upon any one advancing toward us that did not 
give the countersign or halt after a third challenge. 
Time Avore on. Back and forth, forth and back, we 
lonely sentinels paced. Moonless and cloudy was 
the night, though the sky Avas visible over the crest 
of the knoll toAvard seceded Virginia. Back and 
forth, back and forth. It Is one o’clock and no 
attack yet. But hush, hark; did ye not hear it? 
''Who comes there?” The challenge is uttered by 
the sentinel next me but one along the threatened 
border. No response. "Who conies there?” roared 
out the challenger a second time. Again, no re¬ 
sponse. The suspense is deathly. Doubtless Jack- 


32 


A private’s reminiscences. 


son has come back, crossed the river in the still and 
dark of the night, and is at this moment just beyond 
that hillock, with his rebel horde, about to make 
overwhelming onset on our devoted camp. ” Who 
comes there?” the third time, and "bang” spoke the 
old Springfield musket, with voice enough to waken 
the dead. Thereat, O what a trampling of feet, 
rushing and snorting in the copsewood in front of 
me—noise as of steeds and mustering squadrons, 
quickly forming in the ranks of war ! My hair stood 
on end. But, dauntless as Regulus, I cocked my 
piece and faced the foe, "determined,” as the novel¬ 
ists put it, "if fall I must, not to fall alone.” But I 
was not called upon on that occasion to sell my life 
either dearly or cheaply. The scampering was in 
the other direction. A few mules had innocently 
gone to sleep in that brush, and had been scared by 
the discharge of the musket. But what had the fel¬ 
low shot at? Let us see. "Corporal of the guard 
No. 11.” The cry was passed along, and presently 
appeared, not indeed the corporal but the officer of 
the day. Not wishing to imitate Napoleon’s fatal 
blunder at Borodino, of holding back his reserves 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


33 


in a crucial exigency, he had brought both reliefs 
that were off duty. They moved at a double quick, 
with fixed bayonets and martial bearing, to help 
repel the dreaded invasion of our camp. The man 
who had fired told the officer he had heard steps and 
breathing from the direction of the river, and had 
seen a head rise above the ridge against the sky, and 
then sink and rise and sink again, as if some wily 
and determined scout were making a cautious recon- 
noisance of the position. He added, with the accu¬ 
racy of one testifying at a coroner’s inquest, that 
when he fired he heard something drop, and that he 
believed they would find a dead rebel out there. 
They searched. Not a dead rebel but a dead cow 
was found, which the commanding officer was good 
enough to pay thirty dollars for next morning. From 
mules and cows our unparalleled vigilance and valor 
had delivered us. There was not an armed rebel 
nearer than Winchester, forty miles away. 

It used to interest me to notice what special 
agony it cost many men to understand and execute 
orders which demanded memory of any precise form 
of speech. Charley Schmidt was a faithful soldier 


34 A private’s reminiscences. 

in my company, a believer in German beer and in 
German military ability, profoundly impressed "dot 
if Plenker [BlenkerJ or Zeekle [Sigel] vair only 
de gommander of de vorzis, mein Gott, de reppils 
voot shoost kit oop and kit out of de vay, you bet 
petter peleef.” Charley and I happened to be on 
guard together the night when the field grand rounds 
of the brigade we had joined at Darnestown made 
their first regular and formal circuit. Heretofore we 
had not been brigaded or divisioned, but had been 
a host in ourselves. The sergeant came along be¬ 
forehand and gave each of us the most explicit 
instructions how to challenge. He said: "Now, 
Charley, be sure to get it right. Don’t make any 
mistake. When you hear them coming about ten 
rods off, you want to shout 'Who comes there?’ As 
soon as the answer is heard, 'Field grand rounds,’ 
you must cry, 'Halt, grand rounds ; advance sergeant 
with the countersign.’” All right, Charley will try 
to remember. But Charley walks on pebbles. He 
repeats it and repeats it with fear and trembling, 
lest he should make an error and the war be a fail¬ 
ure. Hark ! the august cavalcade approaches. We 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


35 


can hear the clanking of hoofs and the rattle of 
sabres. One after another challenges, the cortege 
halts, the password is given, on they press to the 
next sentinel. Now it is Charley’s turn, but the 
words stick in his throat, which has not been lubri¬ 
cated with lager beer for some hours. Summoning 
all his moral energy he at length screeches out : 
"Who isht dair?” "Field grand rounds,” they 
answer back. "Halt de krant rounts,” commands 
Charley,— "atvance, zarchent, mit de — init de — mit 
de—mit de — mit de gor^oral-sign.^^ The officer 
making the rounds did not reproach Charley for his 
bungling, but Charley reproached himself, and would 
not be comforted till the sutler’s tent was opened at 
six in the morning and he could refresh himself once 
more with the beverage he loved. 

I often amused myself then and later when on 
guard, by listening to the different national brogues 
that made themselves heard in the challenges as the 
grand rounds passed from sentinel to sentinel. There 
was the flat, blunt, homely Yankee challenge, uttered 
by the farmer boy of old Connecticut: " Who hums 
thar?^' There was also the Irish; ^^Heu cooms 
theyer?^^ and the German : Who koomsh dair?^^ 


36 


A pkivate’s reminiscences. 


I must conclude; but before doing so, or rather, 
in doing so, I am anxious to give you a passing ac¬ 
quaintance with a few of my first year war comrades 
whom I have not yet mentioned. It is no reproach 
to Charlie Schmidt, Frisbee and Bill Pilkington to 
say that they did not alone compose that galaxy of 
fixed stars that made up the brilliant company in 
which it was my privilege to shine in the character 
of [pardon the egotism] a lamp. Therefore, ladies 
and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to my 
friend. Private James Jacoby, the peer, if such ex¬ 
ists on earth, of that other friend of mine already 
familiar to you, Frisbee the cook, in the matter of 
good nature, serenity of temper, facility and felicity 
in taking things as they come. Jacoby is from the 
Fatherland, but has been in America so many years 
that you would hardly suspect his nationality from 
his speech. Like his illustrious fellow-countryman, 
Charley Schmidt, however, he loves beverage, but 
rarely takes too much and is never rendered savage 
or brutal by indulgence. He never grumbles, but 
eats, sleeps, drills, stands guard, and is paid off, 
without a word of complaint; has learned like the 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


37 


apostle, in whatsoever state he is therewith to be 
content. Many a time have I heard Jacoby, as he 
lay down to sleep on the ground at night after a good 
square meal, and drew his blanket over him, say : 
”0 aint I glad I came to war !” And many a time, 
when some churlish Englishman in the company was 
grumbling at everything and cursing everybody from 
Abe Lincoln down to the corporal that stood by, 
would Jim Jacoby turn to him and say : " Man, you 
no business to listed, youM grumble if you was 
goin’ to be hung.’^ 

Let me present you next to Private Alexander 
Wilson. For short, we call him Alek. His father 
and mother were Irish and he is Irish too. This 
explains why Alek is a wit. He can be tender, also, 
as I know from having had charge of his courting 
correspondence for several months. The fact is, 
my company in general was mightier in military 
than in literary attainments; and as in the kingdom 
of the blind the near-sighted man is king, so among 
us, he who could read and write was pronounced to 
possess a liberal education. "My parents were poor 

but respectable,” and I had seen the inside of a 
4 


38 


A private’s reminiscences. 


school-house more days than most of the fellows 
with whom I stood shoulder to shoulder in defending 
the sacred cause of liberty. So I became private 
secretary to several, of whom Alek Wilson was one. 
It is not, however, so much on his tenderness as on 
his wit that I would dwell at present. Alek, one 
evening, had been, to state it mildly, under the in¬ 
fluence of stimulating liquids, and the colonel had 
seen fit to tie him up over night, by the wrists, with 
several other patriots in the same happy frame of 
mind. About eight in the morning, the colonel, a 
new-comer, by the way, a West Pointer, with whom 
it was somehow a pet notion that discipline must be 
maintained, went forth to labor with thes6 miserable 
offenders. Seizing the first one by the throat, he 
said: ”You rascal, were you drunk last night?” 
"No, sor,” was the reply. "You lie,” said the 
colonel; "Officer of the guard, keep this man here 
till noon.” Grasping the next man in the same man¬ 
ner, he demanded : "You scoundrel, were you drunk 
last night?” "I was, sor,” the fellow said. "Will 
you get drunk again?” "No, sor.” "You lie,—officer 
of the guard, keep this man here till ten o’clock.’ 


FIEST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


39 


The rigid disciplinarian came thirdly to Alek Wilson. 
”Wilson, you scamp, were you drunk last night?” 
^'Shure I was, sor.” "Will you get drunk again?” 
"Begorra I would, sor, if I got a good chance.” 
"Honest man,—officer of the guard, take Wilson 
down and send him to his quarters; he tells the 
truth.” 

Lastly, permit me to make you acquainted with 
their honors. Privates Cornelius Dacy and Jeremiah 
Horan, who dwell in my memory—and they will 
dwell there perpetually — together. Horan can read 
and is a logician; a philosopher, in fact. He has 
deep views about politics and has constituted himself 
a standing committee on the conduct of the war. He 
is a democrat. If a tine deed or idea is ascribed 
to any prominent republican, he blasts its force by 
the innuendo, "yes, but what are his antecendents ?'^ 
When not on duty, Horan is on the other duty of 
instructing his messmates what a failure Lincoln is 
as a president, and how badly every Union campaign 
has been managed. It is his hobby that the Union 
troops are no match for the rebels anyway. Dacy, 
on the other hand, can not read, does not profess 


40 


A private’s reminiscences. 


politics, is not up on the conduct of the war at 
large, but patriotic to the backbone, and accounting 
it damnable heresy to hint that soldiers ever lived 
who were superior to himself and his glorious com¬ 
panions in the service of the United States. 

One day Dacy falls into argument with Horan on 
this point. Dacy remembers, a trifle mixedly, what 
he has heard about the two battles. Bull Run and 
Ball’s Blulf [the only considerable engagements in 
the East up to the time of which I speak], and con¬ 
cludes to attack his antagonist by the historical 
method. Collecting his memories of the retreat 
across the Potomac from the last named battle, 
he says: " Fair did iver dthose ribbils schwim 

six miles under warther wid their knapsacks upon 
their backs and their mooskets in their hands?” 
Dacy believes this to be an unanswerable argument, 
a regular clincher. But Jeremiah Horan isn’t a dis¬ 
putant to be pushed to the wall so readily. You 
blockhead, you,” he rejoins, "no soldiers ever did 
that. It’s nonsense. The Union men never did 
that. Where did Union soldiers ever do such a 
thing as that ? ” Dacy’s face reddened with patriotic 


FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 


41 


blood. ” Where should it be?” he'roars, the assur¬ 
ance of forensic victory lighting up every feature of 
his classic face, "where should it be? Shure where 
should it be but at the battle of Ball’s and Bulls’s 
Bluff.” 








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